2of 4Genie Milgrom stands in the backyard of her Pinecrest home in front of a very special mosaic that she created that is the Moroccan Carpet, Dec. 11, 2013. Milgrom, a Cuban woman who was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism after she began researching her maternal lineage to find that her family was persecuted by the Inquisition in a little town on the border of Spain and Portugal. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/MCT)Photo: McClatchy-Tribune News Service

3of 4Genie Milgrom stands in the backyard of her Pinecrest home in front of a very special mosaic that she created that is the Moroccan Carpet, Dec. 11, 2013. Milgrom, a Cuban woman who was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism after she began researching her maternal lineage to find that her family was persecuted by the Inquisition in a little town on the border of Spain and Portugal. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/MCT)Photo: McClatchy-Tribune News Service

4of 4Genie Milgrom stands in the entryway of her Pinecrest home wrapped in a long, paper, family tree, filled with the names of 22 generations of grandmothers, a full lineage of names and behind her is a very special mosaic that she created that is The Blessing of the Home, Dec. 11, 2013. Milgrom is a Cuban woman who was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism after she began researching her maternal lineage. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald/MCT)Photo: McClatchy-Tribune News Service

MIAMI — Genie Milgrom's quest for her religious roots began with a mysterious box her maternal grandmother left her. It ended with a book, a website, speaking engagements around the world and a scholar's depth of knowledge about Jews forced to convert (or pretended to) by the Spanish Inquisition.

Raised Catholic in a traditional Cuban household, Milgrom had converted to Judaism when her maternal grandmother left her a well-worn hamsa, or charmlike “hand of God” trinket, and one gold earring with a Star of David in the middle.

Milgrom was intrigued. What did it mean? This, after all, was the grandmother who, upon Milgrom's conversion, had whispered a warning about the dangers of being a Jew.

“Then I started remembering all the strange family customs we had, like throwing some of the dough used for baking into the back of the oven and sweeping the floor towards the center of a room and even how we would crack eggs in a glass to check for blood.”

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All Sephardic traditions. All customs practiced by crypto- Jews, those who secretly maintained their Jewish customs while pretending to be Catholic.

Milgrom, 58, president of her family's Miami-based pharmaceutical export company, launched what would become an almost two-decade search for her Jewish roots, taking her to her ancestors' village of Fermoselle on the Spanish-Portuguese border, a top crypto-Jewish historian in New Mexico, the head Sephardic rabbi in the United States and a rabbinical court in Israel.

The tangible result was “My 15 Grandmothers,” a 158-page self-published book that recounts her odyssey. It often reads like a “The Da Vinci Code,” with underground prayer rooms and cinematic twists.

Milgrom traced her genealogy 15 generations through her maternal line. After the book, she continued burrowing past 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain. She has now tracked 22 generations of her mother's maternal line and Fermoselle as a Jewish settlement.

Abraham Lavender, a Florida International University professor of sociology and Judaic studies, said there has been increased awareness among Hispanics about possible Jewish ancestry, but few people have devoted the time and energy to dig long or far.

“I'm obsessed,” Milgrom said. “Seriously, though, I wanted to be the voice my grandmothers never had.”

As a result, she has become an expert on crypto-Jews and the byzantine process of tracking a family tree through centuries. She is president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Miami, executive vice president of the Society of Crypto Judaic Studies based in Colorado and president of Tarbut Sefarad Fermoselle in Barcelona, which disseminates information on cultural findings of crypto-Jewry.

She has been published in scholarly journals. Lavender, who edits the Journal of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian crypto-Jews, said Milgrom's work is “comprehensive and academic.”

Milgrom's experience has morphed into a crusade to help others looking for their religious roots. One of those is Gustavo Ramirez Calderon, an industrial engineer from Costa Rica, who refers to Milgrom as his mentor. “The first 34 years, I was just going in circles,” he said. It wasn't until he read her book “that I got anywhere.”

Milgrom converted to Orthodox Judaism before meeting her husband, Michael Milgrom. No one else in her family has embraced the faith.

Milgrom and her husband keep kosher. They walk to shul, and when she lights candles every Friday night, “I feel all my grandmothers are standing around me and they're saying, 'Good job.' I'm glad they're here for me.”